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General discussion

dual boot vista and xp two different hard drives

Sep 13, 2007 3:52AM PDT

I am building a new system and will that will have 2 separte SATA hard
drives. I want to do s dual boot one w/vista and the other with xp. I will be starting from scatch meaning i will be doing clean installs.
can anyone tell me what to? I saw things on this forum similar to i am trying to do but not specific to what i need. I need help on what to do and can this be done?

Discussion is locked

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Dual Boot XP with SATA drives
Oct 22, 2007 11:40PM PDT

Yes both harddrives show up correctly in Bios. Using windows XP operating system. The new HD is a WD Sata 300. If i place the new HD in slot 0 and the orig in slot1 windows setup does not see the slot1 HD either so it does not seem to be anything specific to a HD. Like i said, on the Dell forums i was told that SATA HD's can only be recognized by XP if they are in slot 0, you can use them to store data in the other 4 slots but to load XP it has to be in slot 0. Is that a correct statement? What would the purpose of that be?

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I do not believe this is a slot problem.
Oct 23, 2007 12:23PM PDT

This is a basic configuration problem.

You do have a functioning OS correct? If so let me know what you have/find here..start>control panel>administrative tools>computer management>disk management> Is the drive showing up here? Is it active? Has it been formatted? What is it drive letter; is there a conflict (both named the same, CC, DD) in the volume name?

If it is showing up go to the Western Digital web and down load something called: Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics---for Windows. Run this on the new drive if you can.

http://support.wdc.com/download/


See this also:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/291980/en-us


Other possible problems

NTFS, FAT32, FAT file name problem
Faulty hard drive
OS loading problem

This may be a tough problem to fix. You will need to be patient.

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SATA Dual Boot
Oct 24, 2007 12:21AM PDT

Dango,

thanks so much for taking the time to help me!

I will try these things as soon as i can. In the mean can you let me know your opinion of this comment that someone left for me on the Dell boards.

"With SATA, the boot C:/ hard drive, is always connected to the motherboard SATA port-0 and the system will only boot to this drive."

This comment left me with little hope but from what your indicating I may be able to dual boot after all if i can troubleshoot this and find the problem.

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Dual Boot Vista 64 on Raid 1 and XP on Seperate Drive
Nov 13, 2007 11:56AM PST

I am building a new computer with 6 hard drives, 2 Raptors in a RAID 1, 1 for XP Pro, 2 in a Raid 0 for Data and 1 for backups and transfers, etc. I have read about installing XP first, but I have unfortunately installed Vista on the Raid first. I would like to use an old image of my previous XP installation from my old computer if I could. Any suggestions for what I should do at this point. I went through a lot of trouble installing drivers and would like to avoid reinstalling Vista again.

Also, I would like to point to the data drives for all my data. Can I put my entire user account on the Raid 0 Data Drive and point XP's My Documents to the Vista documents folder on the Data Drive?

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Two Operating Systems.. Two SATA Hard Drives
Nov 26, 2007 1:29AM PST

Ok here is my problem i have jus been introduced to ubuntu and i waned to partition my hard drive to dual boot XP and Ubuntu but i would have to format the drive and start over..

Instead I have ordered another harddrive and was wondering if it possible to install ubuntu on that harddrive and dual boot.

The Method I want to take.

Install ubuntu to new hard drive and since i have this easy boot feature i will select it to load from which ever drive i want it to but is there another way that may be even more simple? Will my method even actually work.

I dont know what RAID actually is but will that help me?

Thanks for the help

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For straptin958
Nov 26, 2007 1:36AM PST

Just so you know, you're placed your post in someone else's on page 2 so it's rather hidden. If your issue is the same then use the info above. If it's different why not make your own discussion?

Bob

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For straptin958...
Nov 26, 2007 11:47AM PST

RAID is used when you wish to distribute a load between multiple hard drives, making them appear as one and potentially increase performance (RAID 0), or have one hard drive act as a mirror image of the other so you can pick up where you left off if one of them encounters a physical failure (RAID 1). There are also combinations thereof. Each has its own benefits, but RAID is not necessary for, nor would it make dual-booting easier in this case. You can just install Ubuntu to the new hard drive and let GRUB (the default boot loader) handle the rest.

Hope this helps,
John


P.S. You wouldn't have needed to reformat the lone hard drive to install Ubuntu...there are freeware and paid partitioning tools that can split one partition in two while leaving your existing OS and files in tact. Nice to have the added storage, but hopefully the purchase wasn't made on the desire to dual-boot alone.

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another option question
Nov 3, 2008 2:48AM PST

To je859

How did you set up your virtual PC so you could print from it? I run Vista on my home computer with XP on a Virtural PC partition. I haven't been able to figure out how to print from anythng on the XP part. You mentioned a network set up, but how do you do that when both OS are in the same computer? Step by step information would be helpful and I would be very grateful. Thanks.

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XP gets stuck on the loading screen when trying to dual-boot
Jul 26, 2008 2:18PM PDT

I have one SATA drive that I installed Vista on, but then because of some various compatability problems with software I want to use I decided to try to dual boot with XP. So I installed a new hard drive IDE and installed XP on it. I've used BCDEDIT command-line commands to add an entry to the boot log. However when I select to boot XP it gives me the /ntldr cannot be found or is corrupted error. If I switch which hard drive to boot from the BIOS XP starts to load but gets stuck on the loading screen. Any ideas?

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Both OS
Oct 25, 2008 1:47AM PDT

I have Vista but would like to have XP as a second operating system. GB.

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Multi-Boot the easy way
Mar 26, 2009 9:15PM PDT

I use a Gigabyte EP35C-DS3R motherboard. Pressing F12 on boot allows you to select which hard drive to boot from. Each drive must be set up independently by unplugging all other drives normally attached to the motherboard. Default boot drive can also be set in the ROM-BIOS.

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Dual Boot Vista x86 & Vista x64
Mar 28, 2009 6:23AM PDT

I read a lot of different forums and I was trying to dual boot Vista 32 bit (x86) and Vista 64 bit (x64).

I installed x86 first then switched that to my slave drive and my new drive I installed x64. When I would turn on my computer I would go straight to the newly installed x64 vista.

When I tried to press F8 to go to the Boot Manager it would show only 1 option to pick from to start windows (unlike previous times using dual boot with two versions of XP where I would get 2 options).

So next I tried what dhrwfan said pressed F12 during boot to select my x86 hard drive even though he is using a Gigabyte brand motherboard. It went to a menu to let me select my 2 Hard Drives and my DVD drive. I selected my x86 pressed enter and it came with an error saying no BIOS file found.

Really frustrated now with reinstalling windows I changed my boot set up in BIOS to disable Quick Boot & Full Screen Logo Display.

Now when my computer boots at the very beginning it says...
-press DEL for BIOS
-press F9 for BBS Popup
-press F12 for Bios Post Flash

I tried F12 and F8 already might as well try F9. This also went to a menu same as F12 did to select which device to boot. I selected my x86 hard drive and finally it successfully booted my x86 hard drive! I tried it a few times using F9 (& also F12 & F8 just in case) but it worked every time!

So now if I start my pc and do nothing it will boot up the x64 hard drive. If I press F9 and select my x86 hard drive it boot that drive. My solution for dual boot.

I hope this is helpful to anyone having trouble out there using dual boot.

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Dual Booting XP & Vista
Aug 11, 2009 11:18AM PDT

I have 2 SATA HDs, XP is instlled on one, and Vista32 on the other. I have the MOBO BIOS set up to boot VISTA first, and when I want to boot up XP all I do at power-up is to press F8, and select the Hard Drive that contains WindowsXP.

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XP / VISTA DUAL BOOT
Mar 23, 2010 9:16AM PDT

1. HARD DRIVE 1 SET AS MASTER DO NOT INSTALL DRIVE 2
2. INSTALL XP
3. REMOVE HARD DRIVE XP
4. HARD DRIVE 2 SET AS MASTER
5. INSTALL VISTA
6. REMOVE HARD DRIVE VISTA
7. SET HARD DRIVE VISTA AS MASTER ON THE DUAL RIBBEN CABLE
8. SET HARD DRIVE XP TO SLAVE
9. START YOUR PC IN COSMO {MINE IS F2
10. GO TO BOOT AND BOOT FROM HARD DRIVES {NOT BOOT CONFIG}

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Hardware option
May 3, 2010 6:33AM PDT
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The easiest solution
Aug 29, 2010 12:36PM PDT

While there are many solutions and tweaks. The surefire fix is a free download that is widely used and very accurate and stable. EasyBCD is NeoSmart Technologies 100% free Vista bootloader modification tool. It is available at http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1.

I currently use it to boot Ubuntu, Vista and XP on the same machine. It matters not how many drives or partitions you are using.

Wish I would have found it sooner.

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Dual boot - Vista(64) and Xp - 2 different HDs-SATA
Oct 11, 2010 9:06AM PDT

First of all ,Thanks to all posted here,as the posting here help me piece together all the information to fix my machine. I wanted to come back and tell what I did,Im sure it will help others.

I already have dual boot system but I wanted a 3rd HD only for backup purposes.
Installed HD in tower,plugged in power and sata cord, booted up and CRASH! I wasnt thinking. Would not boot up after that "System Failure Insert Disk"

After many attempts trying to fix,I found this posting.

Here's what I did:

*Unplug Xp power/sata cords from HD
*Put Vista disk in cd drive and booted up
(I wanted a clean install so I saved everything I could)
* Reboot to Vista disk and did a clean install.
* I installed my 3 HD (Xp HD still unplugged) Seagate 500 GB,
the software that came with it was flawless, easy install
* Power off, then plug back in Xp power/Sata cords, boot up
* Computer will boot to Vista, if you click on "My Computer"
you will see Xp is there.
* If you dont have a copy yet, get it, use it, it works great (it freeware).
Easy BCD, here a link for it or search "NeoSmart Technologies"
http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1

* Once you have BCD install on your computer, use it to add Xp
* Reboot and you should see a choice of which OS you want to boot to.
* Install all your updates and drivers.
* After updating and installing software. I partition my 3 HD in half
and made clone copies of each OS.
Now when I screw up..(again)..I'll be ready!

**Hope this helps**


Antec Twelve Hundred Full Tower
Intel Core i7 Extreme 940
EVGA 132-BL-E758-TR LGA 1366 Intel X58
GeForce GTX 285 1GB Mem. 512-bit
Kingston 6 gig
2 Western Digital 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache
(Dual Boot-Vista 64 Prem./Xp)
1 Seagate 500Gb backup HD
2 CDRW-DVDRW Burner: /Sony
Power Supply: CORSAIR 750W